Doggy Dilemma
by truearthurfan
Summary: Now that May is living with Dora, she also has to go to school. On the way there on the 1st day, they find a puppy. the next day, they're turning into dogs.  Now, it's a race against the clock to break the spell on them, before they become dogs forever!


Chapter Four

Doggy Dilemma

Dora and I were sitting outside, in the backyard, watching the full moon. It was behind a cloud, but I knew it would come out again soon.

'I'm so glad Mami and Papi let you stay,' Dora said, looking at me and smiling.

'I am too,' I said smiling. 'I'd hate to think of what would've happened if I hadn't met you as soon as I came- ah!'

'May?' Dora asked, looking worried.

I was bent forward, holding my stomach. It felt like something was trying to burst out of it. Had I eaten something that didn't agree with me?

The full moon came out from behind the cloud.

'AH!' I cried, falling forward.

'May!' Dora cried in alarm.

This pain was excruciating. What was going on?

'_Wait,_' I thought, looking up at the moon. '_The pain intensified right after the full moon had come out._'

No way. It couldn't be-

'ARH!' I cried, my body curving.

'May, what happening to you?' Dora cried, tears in her eyes.

Brown hair grew all over my body. I grew larger, ripping through my clothes. My ears became pointed and my face grew out into a snout.

Dora stared in horror, her hands over her mouth.

I'd turned into a werewolf.

I looked at her, my eyes filled with hunger.

I wasn't in control of my body anymore. It was like I was watching a horror movie from the monsters' perspective.

'May, it's me, Dora,' Dora whimpered as the werewolf drew closer, its fangs beared.

It lunged forward. Dora's scream rang out through the air.

'DORA!' I cried, sitting up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat, my eyes wide with fear.

'May, what's wrong?' Dora asked, waking up and sitting up in bed.

'What's wrong?' Dora's dad asked urgently as he and Mrs Melina hurried in through the door.

I was breathing heavily, my eyes still wide with fear.

'It- it was just a bad dream,' I managed to gasp.

My body was shaking all over. Though I didn't know whether it was from fear or cold. I was drenched in a cold sweat, after all.

'It's alright,' Mrs Melina said, hugging me. 'Everything's alright now.'

I didn't know why, but I suddenly started crying and buried myself in Mrs Melina arms.

That dream had been terrifying. And, with the body of a 5-year-old, I think my bravery had dropped a fair bit and my fear was a lot stronger now.

When I was done crying, Mrs Melina asked if I wanted to sleep with them for the night.

I shook my head, looking like a brave little girl.

The truth was, I didn't want to feel weird, sleeping in a bed with two adults I barely knew. No mater how nice they were.

So, instead, Dora said, she'd sleep with me, in my bed tonight.

Immediately the first thought that popped into my head was, "It's nothing sexual. It's just two friends, sleeping in the same bed together. Nothing else."

I agreed, mainly because I was still a little nervous. That dream had scared the shits out of me. And being in a 5-year-old girl's body didn't help that, either.

So Dora got into my bed, Mr. and Mrs Melina went back to their room and we went to sleep.

When morning came, I was the first to wake up.

Dora and I were sprawled out on the bed.

I sat up and looked at her.

She looked so cute when she was asleep.

'No, Ben, no!' I said firmly, slapping myself on the face. 'You can't think like that. You're 19-years-old and she's only 5, no matter what you physical appearance.'

I slowly got out of bed, being careful not to wake Dora up, walked over to the window and looked out at the morning sky.

The sun was half risen so I was guessing it was around 7 O' clock.

'Well, it's my first real day in DORA The Explorer's world,' I said, slapping my checks with both hands. 'I'd better make sure I make a good impression.'

I walked over to the closet and opened it, looking inside.

Dora certainly had a wide collection of clothes for a 5-year-old.

There were at least 12 dresses.

I took a sleeveless light-pink one with a white ribbon to tie around the waist out, held it against myself and looked in the closet mirror.

'Not bad,' I said, looking at the way the dress looked against my 5-year-old girl body.'

I winked at myself.

I looked rather cute.

I put the dress back and took out another.

It was actually a pink and light-pink stripped, sleeveless shirt and a small pink skirt.

I held them against me and looked in the mirror.

'Not as cute as the other one,' I said, looking at myself. 'But still, very cute.'

I'd originally intended to wear what I'd worn yesterday, but it seemed that Mrs Melina had put them in the wash. Luckily, she'd take my phone out of my shorts pocket and put it on the dresser table in this room. It was by the window.

I choose to wear the light-pink dress with the white stripe around the waist.

As I put it on, I was a little worried about how easily I'd been able to agree with wearing a dress. Less than 3 days in this body and I was already starting to feel and act more like a girl.

I shook my head, tied the white ribbon around my waist and looked at myself in the mirror.

I looked absolutely adorable. But something was missing. What was it? What was it?

I looked around the room. On Dora's dresser table I could see a couple of hair clips. I walked over and looked carefully at each one. I knew one of these clips would finish the look, but I didn't know which.

Luckily, there was a small mirror on the dresser table so I could test each one.

I held a small heart-shaped clip to my head, near my right ear. No.

I put that back in the small box they were in and took out a five-point yellow star clip. Nope. That wouldn't work either.

Then I noticed a small blue flower clip with a yellow centre.

I picked it up and held it on my hair. Perfect.

I clipped it on and looked at myself, smiling.

Considering it was the first time I'd really tried something like this, for more than the one obvious reason of being a boy, I looked quite nice.

Now I just needed my shoes.

I looked around back my sneakers weren't anywhere. When I'd arrived in this world, they were the one piece of my original clothing that had stayed. Granted, they had shrunk to fit my small feet and magically repaired themselves, but none the less, they'd stayed.

But they weren't in the room. Maybe Mrs. Melina had taken them out too. They had been rather scuffed after all.

So what was I going to wear on my feet? I couldn't go walking around barefoot.

I looked around the room and spotted a pair of pink, strap-on sandals with a blue flower by the toes area.

I walked back to Dora's closet mirror and looked at myself.

I was pretty impressed with myself. I looked stunningly adorable.

I put my fore fingers to my cheeks and gave a small smile.

Oh! I just wanted to hug myself. I was so cute.

'_Whoa, hang on a second there!_' I thought, shaking my head and frowning. '_You are Ben Cousins. A average-looking 19-year-old man with a job. Not a cute 5-year-old girl._'

Dora stirred, turning my attention away from myself.

I turned to look at her and smiled.

'_I wonder what she'll think, when she sees me,_' I thought, sitting on the stool by the dresser table.

Dora sat up, rubbing her eyes, yawning.

'Good morning, sleepy head,' I said.

Dora looked in my direction and saw me.

'Wow, May,' she said, getting out of the bed and staring at me. 'You look great.'

'Thanks,' I said, putting my right hand behind my head, giving a small smile. 'Oh, I mean, gracias. Is it alright that I borrowed one of you dresses without asking? It's just that your mum took my other clothes for a wash and I didn't have anything else to wear. Since, you know, I didn't expect to come to this world when I did.'

'Be nada,' Dora said, smiling. 'I don't usually wear that dress anyway. You can keep it.'

'Thanks, I guess,' I said smiling.

This conversation was making me feel weird.

When Dora was dressed, her usual clothing attire, she and I went downstairs, had our breakfast and left for school. It was nearby, so we could walk there.

I was still self-conscious about the idea of going to school, considering, back in the real world, I'd graduated from school all together.

When Dora and I walked out the front door, we found a green backpack sitting by the door.

'Where did that come from?' Dora asked as I bent down and picked it up.

'There's a note,' I said, taking the small piece of paper that was slipped in the front flap.

It read:

"Dear Ben- whoops, I mean May. Oh, no. Don't write that, you stupid Magic Pencil. Oh, never mind. Anyway, please accept this special backpack as an apology for the extra time you will have to wait before I can send you back to your own world.

Signed

F.G."

'That backpack must be from Fairy Godmother,' Dora said, having read the note over my shoulder.

'Yeah, I guess,' I said, opening the backpack. 'At least we don't need to squish our stuff in Backpack.'

Dora took the hint, slipped Backpack off her back, opened him, took the snack her mum had pack for me and my other things out and gave them to me.

I put them into the green backpack, closed it and slipped it over my shoulders, onto my back.

'We'd better hurry, or we'll be late,' I said, looking at Dora.

Hey, I might not like the idea of going to school again; I didn't want to be late either.

We hurried off down the road, heading for the school.

We got there a few minutes before it started. The other kids were playing on the playground.

'They look like they're having fun,' I said smiling.

'Let's join them,' Dora said, smiling.

'Yeah,' I said smiling. 'Why not? It's been a while since I've had fun on a playground.'

That was mainly because I had become too big, being 19 after all.

There was a whimper from down by our feet.

We both looked down.

A small, red puppy with pointy ears was looking up at us, smiling.

'A puppy,' Dora said excitedly, kneeling down.

The puppy immediately jumped up and licked her right cheek.

Dora laughed.

'Hey, that tickles,' she said, laughing.

'Here, boy,' I said, kneeling down.

The puppy stopped licking Dora, ran over to me and licked me on my left cheek.

'Ha, ha. Hey,' I said, closing my left eye. 'That tickles.'

I suddenly stopped laughing, my eyes sad.

'May?' Dora said, noticing the sad look on my face. 'What's wrong?'

'This puppy just remained me of my own dog, back in my world,' I said, patting the puppy's head, the sad look still on my face.

Dora understood.

Homesickness was a powerful thing. And, considering my home was in another world, homesickness was worse for me than it would be for most people.

The bell went.

'Come on,' I said, putting the puppy down and standing up. 'We'd better get going.'

I started to walk off towards the front doors.

'Bye, little puppy,' Dora said, waving to the puppy as she hurried after me.

Neither of us had noticed that the side of our cheeks where the puppy had licked us were sparkling with golden sparks.

The puppy smiled and ran off down the road, heading in the direction of the rainforest.

'Everyone, we have a new friend joining us today,' Miss Marley, the school teacher.

She had long brown hair, tied back in a pony tail and blue eyes. She was wearing a blue T-shirt and long brown skirt.

I was standing in front of all the other kids.

They were all sitting on cushions on the floor, looking at me.

I felt really nervous, standing in front of them all.

If I'd been my old size I doubt I'd have been so nervous, standing in front of a bunch of schoolers. But I wasn't my old size. I was _their _size.

'Would you like to introduce yourself, dear?' Miss Marley said, looking at me, smiling.

'Um, okay,' I said, nodding.

I looked at all of the other kids.

I gulped.

Then I saw Dora smiling at me from the back.

I took a deep breath.

'M-my name's May Kyoko,' I said, putting my hands together in front of me. 'It's nice to meet you.'

'Hola, May,' Miss Marley said smiling. 'Would you like to take a seat?'

'Um, thank you, Miss,' I said, nodding. 'Gracias.'

I walked around the room and sat down next to Dora.

She smiled at me and I smiled back.

A little later, Miss Marley asked Dora and me to stand in front of the class and sing the alphabet.

I was a little nervous about singing in front of all these kids, but I pushed those fears down.

I couldn't think about them now. If I did, I wouldn't be able to sing properly.

Dora smiled at me and I smiled back.

'A, B, C, D, E, F, G,' we sang together, smiling. 'H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P. Q, R, S. T, U V. W, X, Y and Z. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me-?'

I sang "me".

But when Dora sang "me", she didn't sing "me". She yipped. Like a dog.

She blinked, confused.

She wasn't the only one.

We all stared at her, very confused.

I was the most confused out of everyone.

Why had Dora just yipped, like a dog?

'Dora?' I said, looking at her.

'Yes?' Dora asked, looking at me, still looking a little confused.

'What did you just- Yip?'

I blinked

I hadn't said "yip". I'd yipped.

Dora and I had both yipped like dogs, without meaning to.

'Miss?' I said, looking at her.

'Yes, May?' Miss Marley asked, looking at me, a little worried.

'Could we go and see the nurse?' I asked, taking Dora right hand in my left. 'I think we're sick.'

She nodded.

When the nurse examined us, she found that our noses were wet. She thought we were catching a cold so she called Dora's mum.

She arrived a few minutes later and took the two of us back to the house.

'I don't understand,' Dora said, shaking her head as we sat in our child protection seats. 'If we have colds, why were we yipping in class?'

'I don't know,' I said, folding my arms, frowning. 'Why _did_ we yip like dogs during class?'

It was a mystery. And, like I knew Dora would, I wanted to solve it.

A few minutes later we were lying in our beds, a thermometer in our mouths.

Dora's mum took the thermometers out and examined them.

'Please, Mrs Meli- I mean, Mami,' I said, sitting up. 'We don't feel sick.'

'That's right,' Dora said, sitting up too. 'If we had colds, we'd be sneezing and have fevers.'

'Well, you don't have fevers,' Dora's mum said, looking at both the thermometers and frowning. 'But your noses are both wet, which is a sign of a cold.'

'But Mami-' we both began.

'No,' she said, holding up a finger to stop us.

It worked. Dora and I closed our mouths and looked down. Somehow, mothers had that power. If they held up a finger, immediately children went quiet.

But I was a 19-year-old in a 5-year-old's body. I shouldn't be affected by it. But somehow, I was.

Dora's mum sighed.

'I know you don't like the idea of having to stay in bed on such a nice day,' she said, making the both of us lie down again. 'But I'm just looking out for both of you. If you go outside and get a fever, you could get really sick.'

She walked out the room, closing the door behind us.

'If we're not sick,' Dora said, looking up at the ceiling. 'I wonder what's happening to us.'

'I know,' I said, nodding. 'It's like we're sick, but we don't feel like we are. It's weird.'

'But being in bed is making me feel sleepy,' Dora said, yawning.

'I know what you mean,' I said, yawning too.

We were asleep in a mater of seconds.

'ARH!' I cried, my body curving.

'May, what happening to you?' Dora cried, tears in her eyes.

We were standing in the backyard at night again. The full moon shone down on us.

Brown hair grew all over my body. I grew larger, ripping through my clothes. My ears became pointed and my face grew out into a snout.

Dora stared in horror, her hands over her mouth.

I'd turned into a werewolf again.

I looked at Dora, my eyes filled with hunger.

This time, it was like I was watching a horror movie from above.

'May, it's me, Dora,' Dora whimpered as the werewolf drew closer, its fangs beared.

It lunged forward. Dora's scream rang out through the air.

My eyes burst open and I sat up in bed, holding the covers with my left hand.

I was drenched in sweat again and breathing heavily.

'What a horrible nightmare,' I said, putting my right-hand over my right eye. 'Why'd I have it again?'

Suddenly a smell reached my nose.

I sniffed.

It smelt like bacon. No.

I sniffed again.

Not just bacon. Bacon and eggs, with a glass of orange juice and a squeeze of lemon.

I blinked.

Whoa. How could I smell something with such detail?

Thanks to going temporarily blind after my second brain operation, back in the real world, my sense of smell was stronger than that of most humans. But it had never been _this_ strong before. That bacon smelt like it was sizzling in the kitchen, but it wasn't.

Dora's mum was outside, hanging up some laundry and her dad was at work. What he did for work, I still didn't know.

But, getting back to the bacon, I sniffed the air again.

The bacon was sizzling on a stove around 35kilometres away. The stove had been cleaned a few minutes before the bacon had started to be sizzled.

Wait, how could I tell that just by sniffing the air?

I shook my head, lifting my right-hand up to scratch it.

My hand touched something pointy.

I frowned.

I felt more of the point. As I moved my hand farther down, it felt more like an ear. A dog ear.

I threw the covers off and ran to Dora's closet, opened it and looked in the mirror.

Sitting on the top of my head were two pointy, orangey-brown dog ears.

'What the hell?' I shouted, pulling at the ears.

Ow. That hurt. These were real.

Now that I looked closely, I couldn't see my ordinary human ears anymore. The part of my head where they'd been was just blank skin.

'May?' Dora said, sitting up in her bed, rubbing her right eye with her right-hand.

I looked at her and jumped.

She had dog ears too. They were like mine, but brown.

'Dora, you're ears!' I said, pointing.

'Huh?' Dora said, putting her right hand to where I was pointing and feeling the pointy dog ear.

'AH!' she cried, jumping out of bed, running over and looking at herself in the mirror. She stared at the ears on the top of her head. _Her_ human ears had gone too.

'What's happening to us?' she asked worriedly, looking at me.

'I don't know,' I said frantically, still holding my own dog ears.

'I'd say you got hit with a Doggy Spell.'

Dora and I looked around the room, confused.

Who'd just said that?

'Over here,' the voice said again.

We still couldn't see who was talking.

'By the door,' the voice said, sounding a little impatient.

Dora and I looked at the door.

The green backpack Fairy Godmother had given me was looking at us.

It now had eyes and a mouth.

'You can talk?' I said, pointing at it with shock.

'Of course I can talk,' he said, frowning. 'I am a _magic_ backpack, after all.'

'Oh,' I said, looking at Dora.

'That does make sense,' she said, shrugging.

'Anyway,' my backpack said, getting our attention. 'First of all, nice to meet you. Call me Pack.'

'Um, hola, Pack,' we said unsure. This was a little weird. Wait, Dora and I had dog ears! How could I think my magic backpack, given to me by Fairy Godmother, talking could be any weirder than having dog ears?

'Now, as I was saying,' Pack said, looking at the two of us. 'It looks like you've been hit with a Doggy Spell.'

'What's a Doggy Spell?' I asked, frowning.

'Si,' Dora said, frowning too. 'I've never heard of such a thing.'

'You haven't?' I asked her, surprised.

I thought Dora had explored and learned about almost everything.

'Never,' Dora said, shaking her head, making her dog ears twitch a little.

She whimpered, holding them.

'A Doggy Spell is a type of magic that can be used only by dogs from the Magical World,' Pack said, looking at the two of us. 'It's a 5 day spell.

'5 day spell?' I said, frowning. 'What does that mean?'

'That means it will take 5 days for the spell to be completed,' Pack said, closing his eyes, acting like a not-it-all.

I really hated it when people did that.

'Over the 5 days you'll start to turn into dogs,' Pack continued, oblivious to the look of fear of Dora's face the more he spoke. 'First you have occasional fits of yipping-'

'Had that,' I said, counting one of the fingers on my left-hand.

'Then your noses gets wet, like a dog's nose,' Pack went on.

'Had that,' I said, counting another finger.

'You lose your human ears and grow dog ones,' Pack continued.

'And that,' I said, counting a third finger.

'Then you'll grow fur all over your bodies,' Pack said, not noticing.

'Haven't had that yet,' I said, sighing a little.

'After that, you'll turn into complete puppies, with only the hair on top of your heads to show that you used to be human,' Pack finished.

'So once we turn into puppies the spell's complete?' Dora asked, her voice quivering a little.

'No, no,' Pack said, shaking his, well, everything. 'The spell will become complete and irreversible on the 5th day at the exact time the spell was placed on you the first day.'

'Irreversible?' Dora cried, horrified.

'You mean, if we haven't reversed the spell by that time on the 5th day-' I said, looking horrified myself.

'You will remain dogs forever,' Pack said, nodding.

'Oh, no,' Dora said, looking at me, tears in her eyes. 'I don't want to turn into a dog forever.'

'You won't, Dora,' I said firmly. 'I won't let that happen. Pack, how do we reverse the spell?'

'They use the spell on humans who are mean to dogs,' Pack said, looking at me. 'The only way to reverse the spell is to make up for the crime committed against the dogs.'

'But... we love dogs,' Dora said, looking at Pack.

'Yeah,' I said frowning. 'We've never done anything bad to a dog in our lives.'

'Are you sure?' Pack said, looking at me. 'You didn't do anything to a dog, back in _your _world?'

'Well, I guess I did yell at a grouchy German Shepherd,' I said, thinking.

'What?' Dora said, looking at me in shock.

'But that dog was insane,' I said firmly. 'I nicknamed him Argo because he'd go crazy every time someone simply walked passed. I even think the people who owned him put him down because he was too aggressive.'

'They did?' Dora asked, looking sad.

'Well, then I don't see why a Doggy Spell was placed on the two of you,' Pack said, looking confused. 'Did you meet a dog yesterday?'

'Yeah,' Dora said, looking at me and then back to Pack. 'We met a cute little puppy before we went to school.'

'Did it lick you?' Pack asked, looking worried.

'Well, yeah,' I said, frowning. 'It licked both of us. We thought it was just being friendly.'

'Oh, no,' Pack said, shaking himself as if he was shaking his head, if he had one. 'That must have been a puppy from the Magic World that came to you by mistake.'

'So, how do we reverse the spell if we haven't done anything wrong to the dogs?' I asked, holding my right-fist in front of me.

I wasn't going to let Dora have to spend the rest of her life us a dog.

'Most humans don't break the spell,' Pack said sadly. 'They end up spending the rest of their natural lives as dogs.'

'So, they live for a maximum of 15 years?' I asked, frowning.

'Oh, no,' Pack said, shaking himself again. 'They live as long as they would have if they were still human.'

'You mean, we could be stuck as dogs for over 80 years?' I cried, horrified.

Pack nodded.

'I'm afraid so,' he said sadly.

Dora's face fell.

'Well, then we'll be two of the few to break the spell,' I said firmly, putting my left-hand on Dora's right shoulder.

She smiled.

'How do we break the spell?' I asked Pack firmly.

A large piece of paper flew out of his flap and flew into my open right-hand.

'Follow that map, stay true to yourselves and you'll break the spell,' Pack said firmly.

'Right,' Dora and I said, nodding.

We got dressed, went downstairs and told Dora's mum about the spell and what we had to do to break it.

I was wearing the pink dress Dora had given me yesterday and she was wearing her usual clothes.

Pack had told us that we couldn't take Backpack or Map. We couldn't have help from anyone who was human unless we desperately needed their help. We couldn't even ask Boots, Benny Bull, Isa Iguana or Tico Squirrel for help either.

We'd have to do this on our own.

I was a little worried about Dora when he said that.

As far as I knew, Dora had never been on an adventure without Backpack and Map. How would she handle it?

Dora's mum didn't like the idea of the two of us going out on our own either. I didn't see why. Dora went on adventures all the time and it had never bothered her before. But she still agreed. She didn't really have a choice.

If Dora and I didn't go on this adventure alone, just the two of us, the spell would never break and we'd be stuck as dogs, forever.

We walked out the door and headed down the road, towards the forest.

'I really think I should have chosen something else to wear,' I said, looking down at the pink dress. 'This dress isn't the best to wear when travelling through a forest.'

'But we've got to go, now,' Dora said, looking at me. 'It's already been half a day since that puppy from the Magic World licked us. We've got less than 4 ½ days until we become dogs forever.'

'You're right,' I said firmly. 'Making sure we stay human is worth ruining a dress. Even if it _is_ a really nice one.'


End file.
